About 2 kilometres off the coast of Dakar you’ll find the beautiful island of Île de Gorée, which also happens to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Surrounded by the bright blue Atlantic and covered with trees and flowers and brightly coloured buildings, this small strip of land is like an enclave of peace and serenity amidst the rough waves of d’Atlantique.
Île de Gorée
While walking on this idyllic small island, it quickly becomes obvious that tourism here is the main (if not the only) source of income. The small harbour is the only point to get on or off the island – which means the few ferries that connect Île de Gorée with Dakar are used for both passengers as well as any type of cargo. We shared our trip with an impressive amount of sand/cement bags and some crates of food.Next to the harbour is a small sandy beach and we’re welcomed by a strip of restaurants. It’s a warm and sunny day and before we begin our tour on the island we sit down to enjoy a Diabolo menthe, a bright green non-alcoholic soda with a strong mint flavour.
Maison d’Esclaves
- Slavery monument
Though beautiful as it looks today, the island’s history is far from beautiful. Maison d’Esclaves (house of slaves) is one of the landmarks on the island, which was used to hold the slaves from the mainland while waiting for the next ship to bring them across the Atlantic to the Americas. From the outside, this big red block doesn’t seem to carry such history, and even inside the building looks surprisingly innocent. It takes a second look to reveal a bit of the dark history behind this island.
The first thing you’ll notice in Maison d’Esclaves’ patio are the two half-circle red stairs to the first floor, they look like two big arms hugging the empty centre of the courtyard. On both sides of the symmetrical building there are doors leading to small, dark rooms with narrow slits for windows – this is the point where you realise there’s more to this building than meets the eye. In one of the rooms the slaves were weighed, after which they were divided by gender, age and strength and kept together in the other ‘rooms’. There’s a room for the men, one for women and one for “jeune filles” (young girls). The thought of what would happen to them, but especially to this last group, makes me feel sick.
Porte du vuyage de sans retour - Point of no return
Underneath the big, impressive stairs are also two small, dark rooms with no light at all. My friend explains that this is where they put the rebels until they quieted down. I ask her what happens if those ‘rebels’ didn’t quiet down and she shows me through a dark passageway to a doorway at the back of the building. Standing in the doorway you’ll see a beautiful, overwhelming, but slightly eerie view over the Atlantic Ocean. It looks nice, but it feels wrong. In front of the doorway there is about 2 or 3 metres of boulders and after that there’s nothing but endless ocean. If the staircase-cell didn’t quiet down the rebels, they were literally kicked into the ocean via this doorway. This doorway is also known as “de cette porte pour un voyage sans retour”, the point of no return.
Upstairs are big open doors leading to a terrace, and the nice ocean breeze makes the temperature very pleasant. I imagine the slave traders nicely sitting here upstairs in the cool breeze while the slaves were stuffed together in smack, dark and hot rooms with nosanitary facilities whatsoever. Inside is an exhibition of the tools used to torture the slaves, it makes me think of the imressive columns from Surinamese/Dutch author Clark Accord entitled Black Holocaust (in Dutch). Right here, between the blossoming bougainvillea and palm trees on this beautiful island in the ocean, the history of slave trade and the black holocaust have suddenly become nearly tangible.
Controversial history
However, controversy surrounds the role of Maison d’Esclaves and Île de Gorée in slave trade. Rumour has it that this Île de Gorée and the slave house didn’t play as a significant role in the slave trade as they claim. Due to the ocean’s currents and the draught it’s very unlikely such big ships moored at this island.
But does it really matter if it happened here or not? Slavery happened. And Île de Gorée offers the perfect setting to confront everyone with the horrible history of slave trade.
View over Île de Gorée
We continue our tour on the island, walking towards the highest hill where we have a marvelous view of the island and Dakar in the distance. On our way back to the ferry we kick off our sandals to play a game football with some local kids and an Italian tourist. Wherever you go in Senegal, you’re very likely to bump into children playing or watching football. It’s amazing how many international football players they know. When they find out I’m from Holland, the first thing I hear are “Van Basten!” and “Bergkamp!”. It’s probably the only Dutch they speak. But who needs a language anyway when it comes to football? The language we use are some gestures to decide our strategy and a lot of ooh’s and aah’s for all the (near)goals we make.
When the sun is about to set we go back to the harbour and half an hour later we’re sailing back to Dakar on a boat full of saleswomen (“sister, I have a nice necklace for you, I will give you a good price, it looks so good on you”) and an older mother singing a song to her crying children. As the day is coming to an end, we sail back to the real world of Dakar.
Contrast
Île de Gorée is an island of contrasts. On one hand there’s a picture-perfect, beautiful, peaceful island with bright colours and lots of sunshine. On the other hand there’s a disgusting, bizarre and inhumane history attached to this land. Somewhere in between there’s a tourist-driven economy. Île de Gorée is a place where the (predominantly white) tourists wander around the island with mixed feelings of holiday and guilt on their shoulders, local business people cleverly thankfully jump to the opportunity to sell some of their goods. I guess you can’t change the past, but you can use it to provide a better future for yourself and your family.
Where Maison d’Esclaves has it’s porte du voyage sans retour, the story of Île de Gorée itself could best be described as un histoire sans retour.
Île de Gorée harbour
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I am lucky to have a good friend in Senegal who planned a great trip for us, but to prepare myself for what we were about to do and see I used the following book: The Gambia and Senegal (Lonely Planet Country Guide)
If you’d like to read more about Gorée, please read Goree Island: Island of No Return by Richard Harrison Goree
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Visiting Île de Gorée makes a nice daytrip. Prices are 5000 CFA for non-African adults and 2500 CFA for non-African children. Africans pay 2500 CFA (adults) or 1500 CFA (children) and Senegalese residents pay 1500 CFA (adults) or 500 CFA (children).
CFA stands for Communcaité Financière d’Afrique and is the legal currency is Francophone West-Africa. The currency had a fixed exchange rate with the French Francs, until they were replaced by the Euro. One EUR is about 655 CAF, one USD is about 535 CAF and one GBP is about 790 CAF.
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